4.1 Instructor Razuvious

Instructor Razuvious (Death Knight)

Introduction

Instructor Razuvious is the first boss inside of the Death Knight wing and is a very interactive encounter. Razuvious is a very powerful Death Knight with the ability to slay most any adventurer with one hit. His downfall however is teaching his mentally untrained how to withstand blows from his mighty sword. This encounter is the only encounter to completely rely on Mind Control (a Priest skill) to have any success at victory.

Mind Control is a spell that sits within the Priest’s Shadow discipline and is rarely used within raid instances. However, this encounter requires a Priest to use Mind Control on one of Razuvious’s understudies and uses them to attack Razuvious himself. This is because no matter the defense, Razuvious one to two hits anyone. This is why Shadow spec’d Priests are heavily desired for this encounter.

Set-Up!

The path to Instructor Razuvious is a difficult one, but nothing that is near impossible. The Death Knight’s should generally always be tanked away from the major portion of the raid. There is a guy inside of a cage who will get you the quests (or recipes) needed to get the frost resist gear needed for later encounters. Once the area around him is cleared it’s safe to approach and gain the quests.

You have to clear every enemy near Instructor Razuvious (the horses too). When the battle starts he’ll call on the aid of anyone around, so the entire area must be cleared. You should ensure that everyone inside of the raid is clear on their duties and be sure to highlight that they must get out of the way before Razuvious uses Disrupting Shout (Rogues/Warriors immune, read on).

As for groups, you’ll need a Rogue group that consists of nothing but Rogues and maybe Hunters with Trueshot Aura to increase their DPS. They will not need healing and one of the healers can break off to help them if need be. Then you will need four tanking groups that cover each enemy (use the raid “lucky charms” to distinguish them) that really only need one Warrior, a Priest, a Hunter (to pull the adds to them) and a backup healer. You then need two Priest’s (or more, depending on how your guild wishes to do it) set up to Mind Control the adds. Whatever is left can be put up in any configuration. The only things taking damage will be the four tanks and the understudies.

Skills

Disrupting Shout: An PBAoE (affects a large radius around him) shout that burns away up to 4,000 mana and deals damage equal to the mana burned away. It’s done every 25 seconds and can kill most casters who get hit with full mana. This skill does not affect Rogues and Warriors as they have no mana.

One Hit K.O.: There is no official name for this (nor is it a skill, more of an innate ability) but he can pretty much one-hit kill anyone with a melee attack. Warriors can shield block through his attacks and keep up for a little bit but they won’t last long. Rogues can use evasion and last a random amount of time (depending on how lucky they are) but there is no way outside of mind controlling one of the understudies to tank Razuvious.

Understudies: Each Death Knight Understudy can be Mind Controlled and has two skills, Taunt and Shield Wall that are used against Razuvious. After a Mind Control wears off the Understudy can’t be Mind Controlled again for a little while.

Tactics

The fight begins with everyone but the tanking Warriors, their Hunters, and the puller (a Mage with Ice Block, although a Paladin with bubble of a very good Hunter could work) standing in front of the ramp leading down to Razuvious. The puller (in this example a Frost Mage) should pull Razuvious and immediately Ice Block as soon as he gets near. Then the Hunters should each pull their respective adds (the Understudies) while the first Priest Mind Controls one of them and immediately has it Shield Wall and Taunt Razuvious. Then when the Shield Wall is about to expire the next Priest should Mind Control an Understudy and have it Taunt and Shield Wall Razuvious. The raid should wait until he emotes his disrupting shout and move into LoS for 18 seconds doing DPS then move out. The melee should stay on Razuvious at all times. All healers not healing the tank groups should focus on healing the Mind Controlled Understudy between shouts.

That’s pretty much a summary of the entire fight, but that may be a little hard to understand so let’s break it down into individual roles.

Tank Groups: Each tank group should be tanking their respective Death Knight Understudy. The tanks should keep just enough aggro on each Understudy to keep their Healers from gaining aggro. Their goal should be keeping them away from the raid but at the same time not doing any unnecessary damage to them. The Understudies should be tanked facing Razuvious (the tanks with their backs to Razuvious) to keep the Mind Controls clean and efficient. Hunters inside of the tank groups should focus on pulling the Understudies to their Warriors. The Healers for the tanks should always be out of LoS.

DPS Warriors and Rogues: Rogues and DPS Warriors should be DPSing Razuvious at all times, no matter what. Since they are immune to his Disrupting Shout they can always be attacking. Unless your Rogues can hit for more then 4,000 damage a swing there is no way they can pull Razuvious off of an Understudy so they can go all out if they want to. Rogues should be alert incase the Mind Control rotation fails as a Rogue can successfully tank Razuvious for a short period of time with evasion.

Mind Control Priests: There should be two Priests working together to keep an Understudy on Razuvious at all times. The transitions should be Priest A Mind Control’s the first Understudy and attacks Razuvious with it, activating Shield Wall and Taunt. When Shield Wall starts to fade Priest B should mind control the next add and gain Razuvious’s aggro with Taunt then Shield Wall when it’s a success. Then the healers should focus on healing the first add to full then the Priest should release it so the tank groups can grab it again. This should repeat over and over during the entire match cycling through all of the Understudies in an order. The Priests should stay at the end of where the shout LoS hits.

The Raid: Everyone not busy with tanking, doing melee dps, or Mind Controling adds should be following a pattern. Every 25 seconds Razuvious let’s go a shout that will kill most casters at full mana. This leaves two options. The first one is for all of the casters to get out of LoS (the corners near the ramp work well for this) then wait for the shout. Then for about 18 seconds they move into LoS and unload everything they have into Razuvious. Then they should move out of LoS and wait for the shout again. The second is to unload all of their mana so that when the shout hits they take almost no damage (or a healable amount). The first method generally works with more success.

That’s about it! If an attempt goes sour you can run back up the stairs to “leash” Razuvious and his Understudies. It’s not good to run before the raid is called though as battles rezs and other things can turn the battle back into your favor.

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.